Malware Contaminates Bing and Yahoo Search Results

Netizens using search engines like Bing and Yahoo should rework upon their advertisement techniques for it seems that malware has taken a toll upon these websites, as reported by Softpedia on September 16, 2011.

The GFI Labs has reported that these advertisements involved into promoting all kinds of download including Firefox, Skype, and uTorrent.

For instance, search results for uTorrent download provided URLs of infected pages appearing similar to the real one. But the URL changes instantly when a user clicks on the link and lands on the required page. Thus, it is apparent that the pages are quite similar to the original.

However, it seems that all the malicious downloads are coming from en-softonic(dot)net, fully packed with malware and waiting in anticipation for ignorant users to download malware.

Nonetheless, GFI precautions that Yahoo user is liable to be infected with these links. Thus, for greater advantage, Yahoo and Microsoft have been threatened of this aspect of malware circulation for future safety.

It seems that Yahoo has not done much about the infected pages as apparent from a simple search result obtained from the command for downloading Skype. Also, Bing has not completely ushered the infected links but has rather done away with the advertisements all together.

The security company held the view that threat of these kind should be taken seriously though it appears that the management problems of Yahoo are taking a toll over the functioning problems of the website at this moment.

GFI also provided an example of forged Firefox file installation, which is a rootkit that runs IE silently in the background with an attempt to clickfraud and perform Google redirects. At present, VirusTotal's score is 16/44, while Trend Micro has detected it as Win32.Malware!Drop. The security firm has also notified both Yahoo and Microsoft about these infected adverts that were still appearing in Yahoo search, and the company is also trying its best towards combating these infections.

However, it is unfortunate that users are still not entirely safe from these kinds of threats as these are likely to pop up daily. Thus they are advised to remain alert while downloading pages from these sites.

While seeking search results, several sites are shown on the first page and the selection criteria for going to a particular site depends completely upon the users. However, it is advised that users should try to open the official site rather then grab information from other unofficial sites.

However, it seems that all the malicious downloads are coming from en-softonic(dot)net (EDITOR - Note that en-softonic(dot)net has no relation to softonic(dot)com, a legitimate and secure download site that SPAMfighter fully endorses) , fully packed with malware and waiting in anticipation for ignorant users to download malware.